Nurturing Birth

Doula Courses | Education | Doula

…here to nurture, inform and empower doulas and families

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When a baby dies

Photo of Michelle Every, Michelle smiling. She is standing with moorland behind her. her long hair down to her shoulders. She's wearing a teal padded jacket.

By Michelle Every

What do you say when someone – a doula client, a friend, a relative – tells you that they have experienced a miscarriage or stillbirth? Michelle Every offers some support, information and signposts.

When I trained to be a doula in 2007 I was astonished and saddened that supporting baby loss was not mentioned on my course. Then as I gained experience and connected deeper into the doula community I noticed that loss was not something that I saw being discussed. 

In 2014 I felt a strong conviction to change this so I created the Supporting Every Birth workshop. I wanted to create a safe space to explore loss with a focus on self-reflection and group participation and give time to consider where we are with our own grief being curious and honest with ourselves around our own views and opinions on loss

When talking to doulas about baby loss the two phrases I most often hear are “But what will I say?” or “I worry I will say the wrong thing.”

There is fear around the power of language.

What we do or do not say is not just relevant to supporting loss or supporting clients. It is relevant in every exchange we make in our everyday life. How we respond to what we hear can have a significant impact on the person sharing. Have we heard them or are we focusing too much on our own answers or our own story? How can we offer space, actively listen and resist the need to fix?

When I am considering my choice of words I keep the Nurturing Birth values of respect and compassion at the forefront of my mind. These values lay a great foundation when considering language, can shape my conversations and prevent me from saying something in anger or frustration.

Is what I am about to say respectful and compassionate?

Coming back to supporting loss, what do you say to someone who has discovered their baby has died during pregnancy? Or what can you say at a labour when the baby is born not breathing and has died?

I volunteered for the Miscarriage Association for fifteen years. When I answered the phone and listened to people share their own stories of loss I would hear how the countless times their family, colleagues and friends had said unhelpful things such as “Everything happens for a reason” or “Just move on.”

From my experience of facilitating loss support groups I am aware how a spoken phrase can bring much comfort to one person only to upset another. No one way works for all. It is good to remember that grief is a natural, unique and personal response to losing something important to us. As doulas we want to validate this uniqueness while acknowledging the challenge that this can bring to us personally. We are required to offer support in the moment and respond to what we see and hear rather than having a pre-planned and prepared response. 

Maybe we are beginning from the wrong place. Instead of starting at what we will or will not say it might be helpful to start with what can we be. How can we be our most authentic self and respond to the needs of the family we support? 

On the Nurturing Birth doula courses and within mentoring we talk about being rather than doing. Our skills are listening, holding space, being client led, responding to needs in the moment. We go to births with no guarantees or certainty and yet we go with confidence that our presence and commitment to the family will make a significant difference 

Is this any different when the baby does not survive?

We can create the same environment, listen with the same focus and respond in the same way. 

To be honest, and to give a little away from my workshop, not much changes in the support we offer in loss compared to supporting clients with live babies.

We simply doula.

The Miscarriage Association has created some excellent resources which come from supporting loss for many years, including this video -when you do not know what to say, simply say “I am sorry.”

How do you feel about supporting families through baby loss? Do you have concerns on what to say? I would love to welcome you on to the Supporting Every Birth workshop to explore the topic more. My desire is that every doula feels able to step into this role and offer support.

If you would like to talk to me more about the Supporting Every Birth workshop please get in touch – michelle@nurturingbirth.co.uk

Nurturing Birth Book Review: The AIMS Guide to Resolution After Birth

By Natalie Stringer

Image of the book "The AIMS Guide to Resolution After Birth"

The AIMS Guide to Resolution After Birth by Shane Ridley is available from the AIMS shop as a printed book or on Kindle, for £8: https://www.aims.org.uk/shop

“An absolute must-have resource.”

This book from the Association for Improvements in the Maternity Services (AIMS) is an absolute must have resource guide. It will point you in the right direction to find answers and peace following a challenging birth where you have experienced traumatic events.

All information provided in this book is completely up to date being published in 2020, therefore all signposting to relevant websites are accurate and still in practice.

There are so many different, confusing avenues you may need to explore when wanting to raise a concern or make a formal complaint after birthing a baby. This book very easily allows you to recognise and guide you towards the best route for your individual circumstance. It is UK specific and highlights the different organisations in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, so you can contact the relevant people in your country. There are some time limits when making a formal complaint within the NHS Maternity system, and these are highlighted in the book. Therefore having this guide to hand to dip in and out of when you feel comfortable, will help you piece together what you need in a time frame that suits you, but does not exceed the cut off point.

There are template letters provided in the book that you can work with to raise a concern or make a formal complaint. Numerous support organisations and charities are listed throughout the book, enabling you to seek out who can help guide you through this process, if necessary.

The book also provides a great insight into how to prepare for a subsequent birth and who to liaise with, as this will help ensure certain traumatic events do not reoccur again. Guidance on how to write your ‘birthing decisions’ is a great resource and will give you the foundations to make this birth better and more in-line with your own personal needs. It provides different options for you to choose the best support for you throughout your next pregnancy, labour and birth. This will help ensure you can feel more emotionally and physically in control of your decisions and your autonomy.

Exploring how you feel about your difficult birth experience and/or the care you received is discussed in Chapter 3 of this book. I know this will be so comforting for many mothers and birthing people who decide to put pen to paper and allow their experience to be validated. This may just be a starting point that encourages you to recognise that you do indeed wish to raise a concern or make a complaint. For others it may provide enough emotional release and your resolution may end there.

The language used in the book can be a little difficult to digest in some places. Although written thoroughly and very clearly, some areas can be a little heavy on abbreviations and putting a sentence together in places may need re-reading a few times to help it sink in or understand which organisation or charity has been written about.

Ultimately, many readers will be looking to find much needed answers and therefore it can be used as a reference book. So it may be a case of finding the relevant chapter(s) for their individual needs rather than reading the book from cover to cover. The contents pages at the beginning make it easy to navigate through whilst missing out sections that are not relevant to you. However, I believe every birth worker should read every page of this book and refer to it often, not only to recommend to their clients who need to seek resolution after birth but also to locate relevant information very quickly.

As part of ‘The AIMS Guide To’ series of books I believe this one will help many, many birthing people find their inner strength and courage to explore not only what happened during and following the birth of their babies, but also find the light to indeed seek resolution.

The main success of this book is giving parents the permission to find a way to raise their concerns or make formal complaints about their birth experiences. Together, if more people feel listened to, respected and supported when choosing to revisit their difficult experiences in order to find answers, they will be paving the way for a better maternity system for birthing people now and for the next generation.

Book review writted by Nurturing Birth Doula Natalie Stringer.

Natalie can be found at www.equilibrium-birthing.com

My Journey as a new Doula, through 2020!

By Helena Whitwell

The past year for me, has really seen a new phase of my entry into the Doula world. It has included many moments of uncertainty, self-doubt, huge excitement, and anticipation. It’s amazing to look back on my doula journey and reflect on what has happened!

I absolutely loved my Nurturing Birth doula training, which I completed in 2019. Then began the next phase, where I began to ask questions like ‘When is the right time to start doulaing?’ ‘How do I stop my current job and start doulaing?’ It all felt like a waiting game, with so many things to consider such as my income and the needs of my children.

In March 2020 (eek- doesn’t that month ring alarm bells!!) I had arranged with my employers to reduce my part-time admin job hours and make space in my week to start investing in my doula work. I began using my few extra hours a week to network, start an Instagram account, and find opportunities of local groups to attend. I was daunted, had a lot of self-doubt, and just really wasn’t sure how to get myself known out there! How on earth would I get my first client??

Then of course, that very month, the world changed, schools closed and suddenly I had two children (8 and 5) at home 24/7. This was most definitely not in the business plan!

Fortunately, I was able to maintain my part time job flexibly from home, as well as try and entertain/home school my children. But that’s a whole other story! For the purposes of this blog my dreams of being a doula went back on hold.

PREGNANCY PRAYER

A few friends from my church were pregnant at the start of 2020, and I wanted to do what I could to support them in their pregnancies, help them as they prepared for their births and also encourage them to connect with God too. Before lockdown I hosted an evening for this group to chat, share anxieties, pray for each other and their babies too. They all said they found it really helpful, and wanted to do more of it.

When lockdown began, I decided to try leading them in some reflective prayer sessions over Zoom! Initially this was for a couple of friends, just before their births. I got them to prepare a comfy corner (candles, blankets, fairy lights all encouraged!) where they felt safe and could relax, and then led them through a guided meditation-type prayer. It included questions or ideas to talk to God about, and helping them to hand over their anxieties and worries to Him.

After receiving positive feedback, and after a really helpful Nurturing Birth mentoring session with Michelle, who encouraged me to pursue this more, I decided to begin advertising a bit wider, to friends of friends and through local churches too. The sessions are now growing and it’s wonderful to be able to help people find some peace, quiet, and space to reflect in what can be both such a hopeful and also a scary time of pregnancy.

I now have a mailing list to keep everyone updated with the dates and Zoom codes, a discount offer to buy a journal from my friend’s stationery company, as well as other information about the services I am offering. This is such a valuable way to keep in touch with my ‘attendees’, and it’s wonderful to hear their baby news and how my sessions have helped. Just yesterday I got this message on Instagram:

‘Delighted to share that my daughter was born beautifully last week. The birth was calm, empowering and wonderful. She is doing really well, as are we.’

RETREATS

I have also started leading Zoom ‘Pregnancy Retreat’ mornings, which involve a smaller group coming together, sharing where they are at, praying for each other, having quiet space reflecting, some worship songs and a creative journaling session. I also show some video stories of women talking about their positive birth experiences in 2020, and how they ensured their faith was very much a part of their experience.

Although Covid has had such a negative impact on maternity services (and so many other things!) I find it is also worth noting the different opportunities that have opened up, for people to access things in new and different ways. Running a retreat on Zoom is certainly not something I would have thought of pre-2020, but a major benefit is that people can attend from the comfort of their own homes, without the need for travel logistics and expense. I have even had people attend the sessions from New Zealand and South Africa!

AND NOW…

Hosting the prayer sessions twice a month has given me an opportunity to put myself out there, introduce myself to women on their pregnancy journey, and become a potential, trusted person to support them further. I am so excited to have my first birth client booked in. I don’t think I will quite believe it, until I actually see that baby born, but I am so ready for my first ‘actual’ birth as a doula!

Although clearly my ‘niche’ is focused around my own Christian faith and those who I know in my church circles, I do hope and really believe that some of these ideas could benefit anyone (with faith or none) who is expecting a baby. The practice of *stopping* in our busy schedules, writing stuff down, thinking, reflecting and ‘letting go’ of worries and burdens is so beneficial. And in the age of mindfulness, self-care and developing healthy boundaries, I hope this is something that we as doulas can support, sign-post and encourage our clients in.

It’s amazing to see the array of online-accessible classes and meet-ups, which I am always keen to recommend to friends and clients, such as hypnobirthing, pregnancy journal sessions and much more. There is definitely something for everyone out there and we can see all these things as tools available to us and our clients. It’s amazing for women and their partners to access what they can to feel equipped, empowered and prepared not just for the birth, but for each step of their pregnancy and into parenthood too.

If anyone would like to find out more, or may like to collaborate in developing spaces or events online to benefit their clients in some way, please do get in touch with me, I would love to hear from you and see what other creative things we can explore.

Here is my Nurturing Birth Directory listing: https://nurturingbirthdirectory.com/doulas/united-kingdom/south-gloucestershire/bristol/helena-whitwell/

doula.helena@gmail.com    

Follow me on Instagram:  @doula_helena

Thanks for reading. I wish you all really well as we hop, skip and jump expectantly into the NEW Year!!

Starting my new career as a doula – during Covid-19!

By Lorraine Pryce

I don’t think any of us can start talking about 2020 without saying “What a year!” It has certainly been a year like no other. For many it has changed our way of life: how we socialise, how we view and look after our mental health and, how we go to work.

And for me this year has been no different, except that at the start of it, before we had really heard of Covid-19, I flipped my own world upside down. I quit my job of 12 years and started a new career as a doula!

Since the birth of my daughter, way back in 2017, my priorities and outlook on life changed. I wanted to work at something that I truly believed in and that fed my soul, rather than taking from it. So, I trained to be a doula. The plan was to wait a few years until my daughter was at school and I was physically and financially able to really invest in myself and a new business, but when things at work started to affect my mental health; I quit.

This was back in January and by March 2020 I had thought of a business name, built my own website from scratch and I was ready to start supporting…Then lockdown hit. I can honestly say, as well as dealing with the unknown and the intensity of the pandemic, I shit myself. What had I done? Turning my back on a regular income for a world of self-employment and so many unknowns, was surely going to be the biggest mistake of my life?

Then as our new realities set in, I realised how much of a blessing it actually was to now be self-employed and be a master of my own destiny.

I could invest time in myself and my family without feeling pulled or pushed in someone else’s direction. It was still tough, the isolation and lack of normality meant everything felt hard but working on being a doula became a real pleasure. I was learning more than I had learnt in a long time which helped to feed my passion. I had space and time to really invest into what was going on in the birthing world. And a lot happened in maternity care this year and not for the better.

It became increasingly evident how an already broken system was starting to let more and more people down. With partners being excluded from the birth room, huge racial disparities in birth outcomes beginning to come to light and the considerations for people’s mental health coming bottom of the list, I felt impassioned. With all of this, along with the power of the Black Lives Matter movement, I felt compelled to use my voice. A voice that had been quiet for a very long time. I began to share evidence-based information about the dangerous disparities in maternal care, and, surprisingly, people wanted to know more. This was information that I naively believed everyone would already know. It made me realise just how much this pandemic would affect people expecting their babies and those that had just become parents.

I began having more and more conversations with other people in the birthing world about what was happening, as well as with family and friends. I think they were taken aback by my passion but also reflected the shock at what was going on, unseen by so many.

Off the back of one of these conversations a family friend mentioned someone who they thought might need some postnatal support. At this point, I had thought that the chances of being able to support anyone this year would be slim but I jumped at the chance to be able to help someone on their journey.

All my expectations for supporting someone went out of the window. How was I going to support someone when I couldn’t be with them? The beauty of this was that they didn’t know either but were willing to try because they just needed support. So, we made it work and both myself and the client were blown away by the connection we were able to make just through video calls, texts and emails (more about this client’s experience in part two of this blog).

The experience with this client made me realise that our support as doulas is very much about being there for the person. Our physical presence can be a huge bonus, especially during birth and postnatally, but actually the majority of the work that we do is holding space and listening to others. This is what this client valued the most, and it’s what helped me to continue to put myself out there as I knew that I could make it work.

After this experience it was like I had lifted a veil off myself and I gave myself permission to actually go out and do the work I had dreamed of doing. This may sound clichéd but I had finally found my calling.

Since then I have been able to work with clients in various ways. Some support has been solely remote, then I have done a mix of in-person and remote support, including socially distanced walks. I have also been able to provide in-person birth support where I was able to attend as the client’s birth partner. Each client’s needs have been different so I have been able to tailor my support to their personal needs.

This year has thrown up a level of vulnerability for birthing women and people that has gone largely unnoticed in the wider world. Their choices of care have become restricted and this has had lasting impacts on their experiences as they became parents again or for the first time. No one should feel like they have nowhere to turn during times of crisis, which has driven me to keep going even when it has been really tough.

I have been very fortunate to be able to support people this year and feel very grateful to the families that have asked me to walk alongside them.

Lorraine Pryce, mama2mama doula

Website: https://www.mama2mama.co.uk/

Nurturing Birth Doula Directory profile: https://nurturingbirthdirectory.com/doulas/united-kingdom/west-yorkshire/bradford/lorraine-pryce/#post_content

Working as a doula during Covid-19

Photograph of doula Nikki Mather

By Nikki Mather

Working as a birth and postnatal doula, providing support and information to parents, overcoming new challenges is familiar territory, and is part of the support we provide to families during the exciting journeys they are on during pregnancy, birth and beyond. This year, 2020, with a novel virus thrown into the mix, has been no exception. The only way in which support has been able to continue is by being adaptable. This is a challenge faced by doulas and all birth workers who are providing support during the pandemic.

Online and contact-free versions of doula support, antenatal classes and infant feeding support across the UK have been on offer in abundance. Some doulas have seen an increase in the range of services that they have been able to provide to families, and also the geographic areas they are supporting widened as services are moved online. Sadly, some doulas have had to stop working for the time being, for various reasons relating to the pandemic, including having children at home from school, or vulnerable family members needing extra care, or due to the visiting restrictions imposed from hospitals and birth centres (despite the 5th June update).

A great skill honed by many doulas in their work is adaptability. The possibilities are endless when you are able to look outside of the box and that has certainly been needed in abundance this year in order to continue supporting clients. The range of new versions of support services available to parents across the country is nothing short of amazing. Course providers have supported their cohorts to adapt to their new services, added information to their websites to explain why doula support is still beneficial to families and advertised and shared across social media.

My work involves several elements which complement each other across the maternity journey of families. They have all needed various adaptive measures to ensure that they are Covid safe and working alongside government guidance and legislation. For services where in-person collection is necessary, such as Placenta Remedies, was rapidly adapted to be safe and compliant with new legislation.

During the first lockdown I spent all of my time adapting my offerings and providing support online. In the beginning, people were a little reluctant to accept online services and this was tricky for some clients who were already working with me and who chose to wait and see if the in person sessions they had booked could resume in a couple of weeks. Zoom meetings became the normal way to communicate, developing packages of online support to ensure that parents make most use of the sessions and felt supported during this time of isolation. As the news rapidly changed and it became apparent that we would not be reunited before their babies were born, I helped families to adapt and change their own birth preferences to include support measures relating to COVID-19. 

As doulas, our work is mostly focused on person-centred services. Our support services are usually in a family’s own house, bespoke to their own journey, reflective, adaptive, tactile and full of the sharing of food and space. Focussing on the things we could do, rather than couldn’t, was paramount to ensuring parents still got as close as possible to the support we usually offered, albeit online. As maternity services reduced rapidly (one local maternity unit closed 4 days after lockdown to provide space for ICU), parents needed a source of support more than ever, and families who would not have usually have opted into private support engaged doula support.

I worked alongside families during the height of the first lockdown in different ways, adapted to each family’s individual needs. A fundamental Doula skill that I used daily, listening to the difficulties experienced in maternity during this time, was invaluable to new parents and those who were pregnant. Having somebody around as a continued source of support and to share their stories of joy or heartbreak was reassuring to parents – essentially having a ‘Doula in your pocket” to bounce ideas around with.

Antenatal sessions worked well online and for a time became the completely normal way to provide support. Having offered workshops online via Zoom pre-lockdown I was familiar with the system, which made this change relatively easy. I found that being adaptive and flexible was key to ensuring parents felt supported during these sessions. We built birth plans, we worked alongside midwives and obstetricians to support their birth choices, offering availability to be ‘on call’ whilst they were in labour in case they needed a reassuring voice, or support whilst making decisions about their care.

Many people can find Zoom sessions are exhausting and find it hard to engage. There are added layers of difficulty when offering support remotely that are taken for granted during in person meet ups. Reading people’s body language is hindered on a video call, which we so naturally adapt to and use unconsciously in real life. This made some sessions harder than others and I found myself adapting to each situation by asking different questions or offering information in different ways for optimum engagement.

Infant feeding support and postnatal support was surprisingly useful for parents when offered remotely. It meant they often did not wait long before a “visit” was booked and could get information and support quickly. General infant feeding support could still be provided using video links and clips or photographs. Support for complex situations which I was used to dealing with in person as an Infant Feeding Specialist became a new way of working to resolve challenges remotely.

Working in partnership alongside healthcare professionals was also key. Gaining permission to share information with health visitors and having scales dropped off on doorsteps where concerns were raised about a baby, or special  arrangements made for an in-person visit whilst they were suspended was especially important for some families. Families were able to reap the benefits of advocacy from the doula experience, and in some cases this was a crucial part of the care they subsequently received.

By the summer, garden visits with social distancing measures became the new way of seeing families, and postnatal and antenatal visits could resume as other ‘in-house’ services resumed. By October, another change to the guidance meant that we had to ‘work from home where possible’. Whilst disappointing, parents adapted again as I moved my antenatal services back to remote sessions, with only postnatal services being offered in person if they could not be offered remotely.

Self-isolation has been challenging; I had a client test positive resulting in me having to self-isolate for 2 weeks in October, and after 4 days ‘out’ of self-isolation I contracted COVID-19, leaving me extremely unwell for several weeks and unable to resume even online services until 3 weeks after, in a very limited capacity as I continue to regain the energy lost during the illness.

As we reach a new set of restrictions in the ever-changing landscape of living and birthing during a global pandemic, doula support continues to be an essential part of the support parents receive as they navigate the new challenges the pandemic has brought. Adapting the doula support to fit alongside the bigger picture is paramount to providing safe services. The doula support I now provide may change at a moment’s notice. To truly meet the individual requirements of my clients, including their wider support network and also support my own family’s needs is a balancing act that will continue to change and develop into 2021.

What experience do you need to be a doula?

Sophie Brigstocke photo

By Sophie Brigstocke

“What experience do I need to be a doula?” is one of the most common questions we are asked at Nurturing Birth.

“Do I need to have had children?” “Do I need to have a nursing or midwifery background?” “Do I need to have worked with families before?” “Do I need complementary skills/qualifications?” “Do I need to have experienced birth in a particular way?” “Do I need to have breastfed my babies?” “Do I need GCSE Maths?!”

The answer to all of those is no! Being a doula is not about the certificates you hold or whether you have been through pregnancy or childbirth yourself. Being a doula is about being with families as they navigate their journey into parenthood, and you can guarantee that someone else’s journey won’t be the same as yours. There may be parallels, you may see similarities, but what you experienced and felt won’t be the same.

Sometimes, and maybe this will surprise some, it is those who haven’t experienced pregnancy, birth and parenting who find it easiest to step in to the doula role. They aren’t having to process their own experiences in order to be clear to support others. They can be truly present as a doula without being hampered by the “I did it this way” thoughts. If we think about it, many obstetricians and midwives haven’t experienced birth – it doesn’t stop them being able to do their job competently and compassionately (in the majority of cases).

Unless you’ve spent your life in on a remote island with only trees for company, you are likely to have many of the necessary qualities to be a doula – an ability to relate to people, to listen, to nurture and care. What we are able to do on our doula training courses is help you to refine your natural doula qualities so that you go out in to the world full of compassion, with healthy boundaries, able to signpost and actively listen to your clients.

What more experience do you need to train to be a doula?

If you want to chat to us about becoming a doula then send us a message and we can call you back. We love to nurture doulas right from the start of the journey, so don’t hesitate to get in touch.